Thank you for your feedback, I have added commas, and tried to make it less confusing. I kind of rushed this article out to be done in time for Voice of Crom so I wanted to proof read better, edit, and extend and then post a revised version. The revised version is my second post in this topic, I only made a small edit to the original to add this of the top so you would know to skip to the second post.

I have been working on this for a while not that it will end up publised anywhere or anything just wanted to do it. It is not completely finished but not far from it so I'm gonna post it here so here goes.

I have wanted to write this article for a while but I have been waiting for some things to fall into place or finish and most importantly wanted to make sure that I get the facts right.

Back in February Wal-Mart announced that it was going to be giving pay raises and increasing its a minimum pay rate. Having worked for Wal-Mart for number of years I've seen how well they follow through with such promises and wanted to share with you how this turned out from the perspective of one of their employees.

One of the things I've been waiting on is I wanted to actually print out and show you the exact changes that they have made but I was told that there was no documentation that I could print out until April 1 which by the way is the same day that the raise was originally supposed to take effect. Yes a part of me was worried that on April 1 Wal-Mart would just announce that it was all a big April fool's joke on everybody. When I asked human resources about it after April 1 I was told that there just wasn't going to be any documentation that I could print on the associate level and that the only documentation was on a management level. However that she could look up my pay to see what it was before and after the changes took place and she was able to confirm that the changes I had heard about did in fact take place but could not print me out a list of them, or give me an exact breakdown of my pay. If I did not think to ask about a change than I didn't know about it. I did not want to rely just on what changes management had told us were going to take place because there have been too many times were we are told one thing by one manager and a different thing by different manager and I wanted to make sure I had the facts correct but in this case they did happen to get its spot on for a change. Unfortunately with out a printout in front of me and an exact breakdown of Wal-Mart's new pay system I cannot be 100% accurate but I will try my best.

I know some of these numbers are different by state and country but these numbers are based on my store. What Wal-Mart had announced in February is that as of April 1 they would increase the minimum pay rate to $9.00 an hour at an estimated cost of one billion dollars, so let's see how well Wal-Mart follows through with these promises. Wal-Mart decided to push this from April 1 to April 4 because it starts a new pay period. I am certain it will not cost them one billion dollars and here is why, While they were messing with the pay any ways they decided to restructure Wal-Mart's pay system. For starters the minimum pay rate did indeed get increased to $9.00 an hour but includes some of the adjustments so it is not a base of $9.00 an hour meaning that your base rate can be less than $9.00 an hour but with the allowed adjustments ends up being above $9.00 an hour and only those who were below this $9.00 an hour are getting a raise. This means you could have a base pay rate of $8.80 an hour but an allowed adjustment of 20¢ putting you at a total of $9.00 an hour and therefore not receive the raise. They also reduce the overnight differential from $1.75 to a $1.25, because working overnights has many additional difficulties few people want to work overnights so as an incentive the overnight crews get paid an additional amount. Employees who were working overnight at the time of this change have had the 50¢ difference added to their base pay rate. This means that some associates who would have otherwise qualified for the raised no longer do also Wal-Mart may be increasing this minimum pay to $10.00 an hour in February 2016 and again some associates who would qualify for a that raise no longer will. New associates hired after April 4th will receive the new overnight differential, additionally associates who were overnight before this change took place but transferred to day shift before April 4th did not get this increase to their base pay rate even if they than transfer back to overnights at a later date. Pay grades 1 through 3 have been merged into the new pay grade 1, pay grade 2 has had 20¢ added to their base pay and is now pay grade 1, pay grade 3 and above have had 40¢ added to their base pay and now have the pay grade equal to their previous pay grade -2, so pay grade 1 and above.

Wal-Mart also restructured the raise system, at the yearly evaluation instead of receiving set amount raises, 20¢ for needs improvement, 40¢ for strong performer, 60¢ for exceeds expectations, they are now a percentage. I do not know how much the percentage is based on your evaluation but I was told that my friend Dan received the highest 3.5% for him this worked out to 36¢ an hour so even though for the first time ever he received an excellent evaluation his raises was 4¢ less than the raise he had received last year for his bad evaluation but we'll pass you as average and 24¢ less then if his hire date was before April 4th. There is an issue with local management who were passing everyone as an average evaluation so that we would all get a 40¢ raise instead of what you earned because they didn't want the expense of higher raises or the argument that comes with giving bad evals. This only changed that now we are all getting exceeds expectations because it's still less than 40¢ in most cases. Even if this raise does really cost Wal-Mart one billion dollars this year because the raises are now so low in 4 or 5 years from now they will get that one billion back and every year past that their profit margin will increase when compared to what they would have been paying with the old raise system.

OK so what does all this mean to the average employee? Let me give you some examples.

Example A let's call him Adam:Adam is not really consider the new guy at work anymore is worked out Wal-Mart's for seven months now back in November at it was pulled into the office to be told that because the minimum wage increase passed Wal-Mart was going to be increasing his pay to $9.00 an hour on April 4th. Adam was really excited to hear this.

Example B let's call him Brian, this is a real person only the name has been changed:Brian has been one of the hardest working trucker unloaders for the past three years, some of the other truck unloaders jokingly call him skinny Captain America because he always works really hard, tries to do things the right way, fixes others' mistakes, and constantly helps everyone else. Brian even covers for the truck unloader lead doing his job on the days that the lead is off. Brian is making $8.80 an hour so on April 4th he receives an additional 20¢ raise. All though Brian is grateful for the additional 20¢ raise but he is frustrated with the fact that the truck unloaders who were just hired are making the same amount as him despite the fact that he has been a very hard worker for the past three years.

Example C lets call her Chloe, this is a real person only the name has been changed:Chloe has worked for Wal-Mart for over three years as an overnight stocker but wanted a change of pace so she decided to transfer to be a day shift cashier, she lost the overnight differential $1.75 an hour but is ok with that. On April 4th Chloe was making $8.90 base pay plus 20¢ an hour for being a cashier which is an allowed adjustment making a total of $9.10 an hour so she was told that she could not get the raise. After a while Chloe decided to return to overnight stocking only to find that she is now only receiving the new overnight differential $1.25 an hour meaning that she is being paid 50¢ less an hour than she was making a few months ago for the exact same job.

Example D lets call him Dan, this is a real person only the name has been changed:Dan has been working for Wal-Mart for five years now. Before April 4th he was making $11.55 ($7.60 starting pay, 4 40¢ raises totaling $1.60 giving base pay of $9.20, $1.75 overnight differential, plus 60¢ for being pay grade 4) an hour. On April 4th he did not qualify for a raise however his pay was restructured to $11.55 (base pay of $10.10, $1.25 overnight differential, plus 20¢ for being pay grade 2). Although Dan has not actually lost or gained anything he can't help but think that if he had been hired at $9.00 an hour then he would be making $1.40 more now or the fact that if someone was hired today doing his job they would be paid $10.45 a difference of $1.10 instead of the $1.60 Dan has received in raises. I stated the restructuring of the raises earlier and how it affected Dan with getting only 36¢ instead of 40¢ he received last year or the 60¢ Dan would have received if his hire date was before April 4th.

Example E let's call him Edward, this is a real person only the name has been changed:I do not know how much Edward makes an hour but I know that he is only 26¢ below cap so his next raise will only be 26¢ regardless of performance. Edward has worked for Wal-Mart for over 17 years and will just now be reaching cap on his 18th year. As a part of its push for better pay Wal-Mart has promised to increase pay caps but this change has not yet taken effect so who knows he may get an additional raise with his 19th year. It worries me with the reduced raises it will take much longer than 19 years to reach pay cap.

So in conclusion this raise is wonderful for new employees but by using tricky math many employees who would otherwise qualify for this raise do not to minimize its impact for employees who've been around for a few years and it is absolutely useless for any have been around for longer than that. I do not believe Wal-Mart will actually spend an additional 1 billion dollars on employees with this raise I think that was an inflated original estimation and that the real cost will be lower but regardless because of the lower raises and lower overnight differential in time Wal-Mart will recoup its money and then some. I do not think of this as a raise so much as Wal-Mart investing money now to reduce their cost later in a politically acceptable manner that instead of angering the public has them a plodding Wal-Mart. Thank you Wal-Mart for being a sneaky wolf in sheep's clothing and fuck you!

I have wanted to write this article for a while but I have been waiting for some things to fall into place or finish and most importantly wanted to make sure that I get the facts right.

Back in February Wal-Mart announced that it was going to be giving pay raises and increasing its minimum pay rate. Having worked for Wal-Mart for a number of years I've seen how well they follow through with such promises and wanted to share with you how this turned out from the perspective of one of their employees.

One of the things I've been waiting on is to actually print out and show you the exact changes that they have made but I was told that there was no documentation that I could print out until April 1st which by the way is the same day that the raise was originally supposed to take effect. Yes a part of me was worried that on April 1st Wal-Mart would just announce that it was all a big April fool's joke on everybody. When I asked human resources about it after April 1st I was told that there just wasn't going to be any documentation that I could print on the associate level and that the only documentation was on a management level. However that she could look up my pay to see what it was before and after the changes took place and she was able to confirm that the changes I had heard about did in fact take place but could not print me out a list of them, or give me an exact breakdown of my pay. If I did not think to ask about a change then she did not tell me about it. I did not want to rely just on what changes management had told us were going to take place because there have been too many times when we are told one thing by one manager and a different thing by a different manager and I wanted to make sure I had the facts correct but in this case they did happen to get it spot on for a change. Unfortunately with out a print out in front of me and an exact breakdown of Wal-Mart's new pay system I cannot be 100% accurate but I will try my best. Also I know some of these numbers are different by state and country but these numbers are based on my store.

What Wal-Mart had announced in February is that as of April 1st they would increase the minimum pay rate to $9.00 an hour at an estimated cost of one billion dollars, so let's see how well Wal-Mart follows through with these promises. Wal-Mart decided to push this from April 1st to April 4th because Saturday April 4th starts a new pay period. I am certain it will not cost them one billion dollars and here is why, while they were messing with the pay any ways they decided to restructure Wal-Mart's pay system. This way Wal-Mart does indeed live up to their promise to increase the minimum pay rate to $9.00 an hour however at the same time by restructuring their pay system it allows them to reduce the effect of that so called raise and reduce future costs. For starters the minimum pay rate of $9.00 an hour means that if you are making less than $9.00 an hour after all allowed adjustments then you will receive a raise to $9.00 an hour but if that you're making a base pay of less than $9.00 an hour and receiving an allowed adjustment that puts you at or over $9.00 an hour than you do not qualify for this raise. This means that only associates who are making less than $9.00 an hour are getting a raise, because associates who have been working for Wal-Mart for 4 or more years are already being paid at least $9.00 an hour they will not be getting this raise.

So that is how this raise itself works but what other adjustments did Wal-Mart make while restructuring their pay system? Pay grades 1 through 3 have been merged into the new pay grade 1. Associates who were paid grade 2 on April 4th have had 20¢ added to their base pay and are now pay grade 1. Associates who were paid grade 3 and above on April 4th have had 40¢ added to their base pay and now have the pay grade equal to their previous pay grade -2 so pay grade 3 is now pay grade 1, pay grade 4 is now pay grade 2 and so on. This means a newly hired associate or an existing associate who transfers from what was a pay grade 1 or 2 position to what was pay grade 3 position would have received base pay plus 40¢ an hour now would only be receiving base pay for a pay grade 1 position. Wal-Mart itself had decided that these pay grade 2 and 3 jobs were more difficult jobs or had more to them than pay grade 1 jobs and therefore associates doing these jobs should be paid more for it but is now saying that they are all equal. Furthermore by adding an existing amount of pay to an associate's base pay and removing the adjustment from future use they decrease the chance of that associate qualifying for the raise. For example let's say associate A was pay grade 3 was making a total of $9.00 ($8.60 basepay plus 40¢ pay grade 3) an hour and associate B who was pay grade 1 was making $8.60 an hour, associate A's restructured pay $9.00($9.00 base pay plus 0¢ pay grade 1) an hour would not qualify for the raise but associate B would qualify for the raise to $9.00 an hour giving both associates the same pay. Wal-Mart also reduced the overnight differential from $1.75 to a $1.25, because working overnights has many additional difficulties few people want to work overnights so as an incentive the overnight shift gets paid an additional amount. Employees who were working overnight at the time of this change have had the 50¢ difference added to their base pay rate. New associates hired after April 4th will receive the new overnight differential, additionally associates who were overnight before this change took place but transferred to day shift before April 4th did not get this increase to their base pay rate even if they than transfer back to overnights at a later date. Again these associates who had the 50¢ from the overnight differential added to their base pay are now less likely to qualify for the raise.

Wal-Mart also restructured the raise system, at the yearly evaluation instead of receiving set amount raises, 20¢ for needs improvement, 40¢ for strong performer, 60¢ for exceeds expectations, they are now a percentage. I do not know how much the percentage is based on your evaluation but I was told that my friend Dan received the highest 3.5% for him this worked out to 36¢ an hour so even though for the first time ever Dan received an excellent evaluation his raises was 4¢ less than the raise he received last year for his bad evaluation but we'll pass you as average and 24¢ less then if his hire date was before April 4th. I did not work at Wal-Mart the last time that they were on a percentage raise system however I was told that when they were that strong performer was 5% and exceeds expectations was 7% or 8% just to give you a better frame of reference. There is an issue with local management who were passing everyone as an average evaluation so that we would all get a 40¢ raise instead of what you earned because they didn't want the expense of higher raises or the argument that comes with giving bad evals. This only changed that now we are all getting exceeds expectations because it's still less than 40¢ in most cases. Even if this raise does really cost Wal-Mart one billion dollars this year because the raises are now so low in 4 or 5 years from now they will get that one billion back and every year past that their profit margin will increase when compared to what they would have been paying with the old raise system.

OK so what does all this mean to the average employee? Let me give you some examples.

Example A let's call him Adam:Adam is not really consider the new guy at work anymore he has worked at Wal-Mart's for seven months now back in November he was pulled into the office to be told that because the minimum wage increase passed Wal-Mart was going to be increasing his pay to $9.00 an hour on April 4th. Adam was really excited to hear this.

Example B let's call him Brian, this is a real person only the name has been changed:Brian has been one of the hardest working trucker unloaders for almost three years, some of the other truck unloaders jokingly call him skinny Captain America because he always works really hard, tries to do things the right way, fixes others' mistakes, and constantly helps everyone else. Brian even covers for the truck unloader lead doing his job on the days that the lead is off. Brian is making $8.80($7.60 starting pay, 2 40¢ raises totaling 80¢ giving base pay of $8.40, plus 40¢ for being pay grade 3) an hour so on April 4th he receives an additional 20¢ raise and his restructured pay is $9.00 ($9.00 base pay, plus 0¢ for being pay grade 1). Although Brian is grateful for the additional 20¢ raise he is frustrated with the fact that the truck unloaders who were just hired are making the same amount as him despite the fact that he has been a very hard worker for the past three years.

Example C lets call her Chloe, this is a real person only the name has been changed:Chloe has worked for Wal-Mart for over three years as an overnight stocker but wanted a change of pace so she decided to transfer to be a day shift cashier, she lost the overnight differential $1.75 an hour but is ok with that. On April 4th Chloe was making $9.10($7.70 starting pay, 3 40¢ raises totaling $1.20 giving base pay of $8.90, plus 20¢ for being pay grade 2) an hour, her restructured pay $9.10 ($9.10 base pay, plus 0¢ for being pay grade 1) does not qualify for the raise. After a while Chloe decided to return to overnight stocking only to find that she is now only receiving the new overnight differential $1.25 an hour meaning that she is being paid 50¢ less an hour than she was making a few months ago for the exact same job.

Example D lets call him Dan, this is a real person only the name has been changed:Dan has been working for Wal-Mart for five years now. Before April 4th he was making $11.55 ($7.60 starting pay, 4 40¢ raises totaling $1.60 giving base pay of $9.20, $1.75 overnight differential, plus 60¢ for being pay grade 4) an hour. On April 4th he did not qualify for a raise however his pay was restructured to $11.55 (base pay of $10.10, $1.25 overnight differential, plus 20¢ for being pay grade 2). Although Dan has not actually lost or gained anything he can't help but think that if he had been hired at $9.00 an hour then he would be making $1.40 more now or the fact that if someone was hired today doing his job they would be paid $10.45 a difference of $1.10 instead of the $1.60 Dan has received in raises. I stated the restructuring of the raises earlier and how it affected Dan with getting only 36¢ instead of 40¢ he received last year or the 60¢ Dan would have received if his hire date was before April 4th.

Example E let's call him Edward, this is a real person only the name has been changed:I do not know how much Edward makes an hour but I know that he is only 26¢ below cap so his next raise will only be 26¢ regardless of performance. Edward has worked for Wal-Mart for over 17 years and will just now be reaching cap on his 18th year. As a part of its push for better pay Wal-Mart has promised to increase pay caps but this change has not yet taken effect so who knows he may get an additional raise with his 19th year. It worries me with the reduced raises it will take much longer than 19 years to reach pay cap.

So in conclusion this raise is wonderful for new employees but it's almost uesless if at all to employees who've been around for at lest a few years and by using tricky math many employees who would otherwise qualify for this raise do not. I do not believe Wal-Mart will actually spend 1 billion dollars on employees with this raise I think that was an inflated original estimation before the tricky math and that the real cost will be lower but regardless because of the lower raises, lower overnight differential and changes to pay grades in time Wal-Mart will recoup its money and then some. I do not think of this as a raise so much as Wal-Mart investing money now to reduce their cost later in a politically acceptable manner that instead of angering the public has them applauding Wal-Mart. Sadly this does not surprise me because I've seen them do this same thing before with our other benefits. A long time ago Wal-Mart was considered a wonderful place to work, it had decent pay and excellent benefits but over the years the benefits have been chipped away at again and again and now most of it's associates are living paycheck to paycheck just barely getting by. Thank you Wal-Mart for being a sneaky wolf in sheep's clothing!

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